Montclair and Me:
A Nostalgic Walk Down Memory Lane
It’s 2010, the dawn of the decade. On a balmy September’s morn, with a humidity factor well above comfortable, the sun bounces off of brick-red roofs onto the anxious heads of the freshman class of 2014 at Montclair State University. Each busy body branded with a different color t-shirt, organizing the kiddies into cliques by school. The yellow shirts marked the indecisive few without a major, the Undeclared’s.
That sunny yellow shirt sits in a drawer waiting to make its final bow on December 20th, exactly seven years after the end of my very first college semester…
… and wow, how Red Hawk Country has changed.
We’ve been through a lot together, Montclair State and me. As the university grew, so did I. After a two year hiatus between 2012 and 2014, I returned to an all-new MSU. I registered as a Communications and Media Arts major in Fall 2014. My fellow graduating class doesn’t know what they missed out on — the simpler days of Montclair State, before the renovations that brought up buildings to overlook the tremendous city that awaits our big dreams and job applications.
The best view of the picturesque New York City skyline is from the second floor of Montclair’s newest addition: The School of Communications and Media. This building is a state-of-the-art facility that opened its doors this past September, and comes five years after the Department of Communication Studies began its evolution.
The School of Communications and Media made its debut in 2012 and has come to host about a dozen different programs over the last five years. The students often bring their questions to the one with all the answers — her majesty of Morehead Hall, Janet Wilson.
Wilson has been with the communications department since 2002 serving as the administrative assistant. It is a rare sight to see her office door closed.
“This is my retirement job,” said Wilson, who retired from AT&T Lucent Technologies International Division in 2000. She began working full-time at Montclair State while she was a graduate student studying medieval history. Her position has “evolved” over the years along with the School of Communications and Media, and she says it is “still moving forward.”
“Every single system that we currently have has changed in the last two to three years,” said Wilson. As many of the students felt about these transitions, “It was painful!” she sympathized.
It is hard to imagine a School of Communications and Media without Janet Wilson sitting behind her desk, waiting for us to come and ask the questions we could quite simply find the answers to on our own. But another big change will come on July 1, when the queen will leave her throne. Wilson will be retiring, but she’ll share her final bow with us; “I’ll be at convocation!”
With that fateful day just around the corner, we students owe it to ourselves to be nostalgic.
Just shy of the monumental day that marked the beginning of my long college career, I was worried about how deep the 252-acre Montclair State campus would swallow me.
Fortunately, there was someone who perfectly bridged my transition from almighty high-school senior to college freshman: my prom date.
Alan Van Antwerp and I met when I asked him to be my prom date as he was working on my senior musical at Passaic Valley High School. Being a PVHS Theater alum, Van Antwerp accepted my unusual prom-posal, rented a suit from our costume designer, and the rest is history — literally. At the time, Van Antwerp was a sophomore history major at Montclair State University and offered to give me a tour of the campus.
Seven years later, we’re both back on campus again. Van Antwerp teaches theater at Pingry Academy in Basking Ridge and has returned to Montclair State to complete his masters degree in Theater Studies.
“How did this even happen?” Van Antwerp asked as we roamed the campus, just as we did nearly a decade ago. Van Antwerp had a meeting in the new School of Communications and Media building. He was in awe that the view overlooked “the hub of the entertainment and commercial capital of the world.”
His classroom is just next door in Life Hall — the performing arts building that transformed over the last year seems to have missed a spot. Van Antwerp’s once-a-week graduate class meets in one of very few rooms left to be renovated in Life Hall; one with a broken air conditioner, down a stuffy hallway. Although he came back to a beautiful new campus, we shared a laugh at the irony; “…nothing has really changed for me,” he said.
My early memories of Life Hall are vague, probably because the renovations are so outstanding. Thankfully, I was able to find a Montclair State alum to give me one final tour that would bring me full circle.
Samantha Linn graduated in 2010 with a B.A. in theater studies. Today, she runs MakeUp by Samantha Linn, a New Jersey based bridal makeup company, following a stellar career in makeup artistry. She is my boss and my mentor, and nothing could have prepared me for our tour together.
Linn’s petite frame fought the bitter winter winds to make her way to Life Hall. She entered its new, rather heavy, red-framed doors and immediately began recalling her earlier years. Despite ongoing classes, she peeked her head into the black box theater where she had her first audition. We trailed the footsteps she was so familiar with. We passed a classroom set up with just a few students and some mirrors — it was a stage makeup class. “Isn’t it ironic. I’m walking into a makeup class at my college.”
She lead a tour of a new building through the memories her college years gave her. Though she does not practice theater anymore, Linn credits her experience at Montclair State to her success as a makeup artist. “So much of what I did here built my character,” she says, “I feel my education here was so important because of the networking that I did: I work with so many people from Montclair still.” In fact, a couple of her Montclair State theater colleagues even helped her land a makeup gig with Broadway star, Alan Cumming.
This wistful walk down memory lane makes the final countdown bittersweet, and I’ve realized the most important thing about college. Students, listen up:
You’re going to miss the way the construction obstructs your route to class on the days that you’re late. You’ll miss the feeling of submitting a paper at 11:58 at night before it’s due. You’ll miss going to class and looking directly into the sunset on the New York City skyline.
And you’ll come back one day and realize not how much the campus at Montclair State has changed, but how much the experience here changed you.
